The City Erupts In Gunfire: A Victoria Day Poem

The city erupts in gunfire in every direction.
Sirens are continuous the whole time I’m in the yard
just after dark on Victoria Day.
The dull roar of a low flying plane slides over the city.
The little black bats are zipping back and forth in the blue dark
right at head level.
After sitting for a while, acclimatizing to it all
I get up to do my stretching.
The grass remains troublingly moist
so standing up.

The standard arms raise hits the backwards jam
in the left shoulder and brings things to a stop.
Much better than it was. Do the long arm dangle
like a broom with a coat hanging from it,
then a clockwise rotation, the left arm pulling up out
of the backwards jam. A rush of oxygen to the heart and
blood to the brain. Huge uptake in energy, suddenly let through
into the mind.
Suddenly refreshed I collect my pint and stroll chuckling indoors
with the fireworks all unknown what else and sirens
laughing insanely along.

Apologies to the escapees from War Zones living here
for this nuthouse means of celebration.
Hopefully it seems carnivalesque.
In fact it’s a coy and silly form of celebration of peace
and that people don’t in fact have armaments, for the most part.
If I thought otherwise, I’d be off on my bike to investigate.

John R Barlow Toronto And Windsor
Victoria Day 2017 C Uptake Press )
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Families of Canada Geese Everywhere

Word travels on the backs of pack animals, centipedes and birds

In the News today a family of Canada Geese wandered into a hopeless situation in the predawn hours no doubt, before the days massive traffic had filled every inch everywhere with colossally dangerous air of bipedding parents with nearly invisible goslings, cars trucks delivery vehicles and lathes, in all directions for 400 yards in any direction, and their need to eat throughout a journey fledgling flimsy newborns stumbling ehxaus on pavement with nothing, no water, no greens or throwup, their hopeless journey upon them, walled in by cement girters topped with fences that would only lead to massive uphill climbs. The family of geese was doomed. The youngsters were pecking the pavement and the parents were exhausted. It was like a sad after echo of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept.

The way they’d come was lost. For at least 12 hours they wouldn’t get through car traffic in the lot – cdn tire timhos russiangrocery, and nine feet of wall and fence while the one way forward the car repair areas with drills. Sirens in the distance and car alarms going off, and there they are, doomed. https://youtu.be/QYOoFbE6jQM

The geese are majestically focused and devoted. Their instincts are the same in every situation. It was still early morning. The big traffic that was to come, trucks bombing around that corner, probably seeing the parent geese, but not a chance seeing the goslings, and just the heavy wind of their passing would bowl over the exhausted tumbling small yellow geese -= a moment to think of mother’s day tho on a friday morning

I hopped the fence and climbed own where they were with healthy bread
sprouted rye, so it would provide hydration as well
and walked up to them talking nicely tossing bread
One blackneck goose crossed over and hissed and threatened while the mom and 4 yellows upped and set off walking. All hissing and showing disapproval. I tried to throw the sprout bread in advance of them while speaking reassuringly but they headed along. They’d reach the grassland of the gas station or the former rosehip hill if turning left, be able to rest, and then could likely cross the plaza exit into the ravine system and have great lives. There’s been hardly any feral cats or coyotes in the area in some time.

Later in the day, time to head home, I went down that way and there was no sign at all of any bad fate on their behalf, and they were gone, not anywhere in the vast paved parts of the area. As opposed to being trapped helplessly by trucks for 16 hours.

The exacting minds of these birds is a cosmological wonder.
There are geese families every 200 feet from each other throughout the area.
Three times as many if not four as previous years.
And they’re not difficult to get along with.
If you walk right into them they’re angered
but you just don’t need to.
Go 9 feet around them and they’re fine.
The mothers of the future generations
and their stalwart circles.

Good

Growing up I came to believe in Good.

It didn’t automatically belong to anything
but was only good, good going forward in situe

High Speed Photos from the greyhound and other difficult photos

Creating problems for profit, the Republicans

Talk about gaming the system. It’s how Republican politics works.
It’s a form of making an investment. You have a business idea
that’s noxious to the world, obviously a bad idea, harmful,
you pony up a ton of cash to buy some Republicans, and get them to
establish a law that allows you to pollute and harm people,
eliminates sensible restrictions, even creates the problems
your business idea claims to address. The bought Republicans
do that eyes downward darting back and forth when discussing it.
An obviously bad idea, “why would anyone think of doing that”
eyes go down and dart around, then they lift their faces
and say some bullshit, all full of pseudo-self-righteous rectitude

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/nov/09/mitch-mcconnell-donald-trump-senate-control-video

With their embrace of prisons for profit they need not only
people to profitably imprison, but people to have the crimes
committed against them. And those victims had better have the money
to pay ambulance and a medical staff, or they’re just freeloaders.
Overly entitled freeloading victims of crime.

The bright weather today just irritated me. It really did.
I was out on my bike but making clear, “Don’t give me that
bright world state of mind,” It’s a dark world.

And it’s Trump causing a ton of it.

It’s like he’s planning to rape and pillage.
Destroy lives, destroy worlds, destroy the planet, the future
and be obnoxious about it. Insulting people while he does it
is important for him.

Irresponsible foreign policy ie relations with other nations
maniacal spending on wasteful military security and prison culture
and cruel Potterstown exploitation of the population in America
and everywhere. The Mammon President.

Christmas 2016: Lights and Travels

I always tend to see a lot of the 401 on the holiday break
and it’s an ouvre unto itself: flat snowy landscapes under grey skies
often blurred or obscured by motion and window reflections.
Most Christmasses at some point my mother and I drive around
looking at people’s lights.

I want to start with my absolute favorite of the weekend.
St Clair Beach used to be Windsor’s cottage country, a tiny village
of tiny lightly built houses, often upraised on posts due to possible
flooding, with nice little gardens often sinking below the level
of the piping! Dangerous place to mow a lawn, as bits of piping rise
above soil level. Many of the cottages have been demolished or built upon
with lots of larger houses now, but to see one of the old original
houses cheerfully decorated for the holidays is a happy thing:

The larger houses and St Clair Beach’s classic ‘ranch styles with sunken den”
type homes are cool too at Christmas time.

Some exotic, some postcard classic:

Observations this year: We were pleased by the element of tasteful restraint
this year. Some years we’ve really remarked about the wastefulness
and excess, with vast comprehensive displays of electrical wattage.
Understated was the theme, for those with lights, while many had none.
Obviously I like the deep crayon bulbous lights of the bygone era
and send a happy smiling wave of the mind upon those types of houses.
Anachronisms are not just golden but multicoloured, just like people.

I write all this as one who has not put up a single decoration
except for adding cards received to the top of the big bookcase
along with the little buddha, the globe, the Norton World and Postmoderns
Anthologies, and Neil Hennessy’s Jordin Tootoo tribute.
Apartment buildings get decorated less but still for a litmus
we saw buildings with anywhere from one to three units decorated,
a lot of houses too. Putting lights on balconies can be frightening
and I for one it wouldn’t even come to mind.

You’ll have to click it to enlarge to see the decorated ones
the painted stones as they say

Post-Equinox Sparrow Report 2016/17 Season

It’s been a spectacular year for the little dudes.
They’ve faced their losses, great leaders have fallen,
leaving their greybeard tufts fluffing in the breeze
after battles with the starlings, but to a good cause.
They are many, and they are strong. They are expanding.

My persistence with the wild bird seed and careful navigation of their situation
has them flourishing. In a new development for the group in the shipping yard
little mobs from further away have been joining them, and they’ve been getting along.
It’s a nice change.

And I think it’s benefitting them. They disappear for lengths of the day
joining the other sparrows in their areas. The diversification of options will help.
There’s more hunter birds in the area this time of year. There was one I thought
was a dove til it flew. Another one suddenly took off when they discovered it
right where the group was festively dining.

In the extreme cold they become all bird bone and steel
and shrink themselves weightless expending little;
but they like regular cold weather, it gives them a zing,
and they have fantastic days.

Solidify your base

so of in nettles insides come along.
So many good points around the role of faking things
and trying on obsessions politics identities

tangentially an insight into Trump supporters
(maybe the first one I have ever had)
people who have no lives, no role, no identity
trying on being Trump supporters, with his affirmations for doing so
maybe the only affirmation they get in their lives currently
and then they bond with each other
like some swamp version of the borg
throughout all the mouldy high schools of the land
on up into those not finding a first career
as of age 59 “always been a useless sack of shit”
now a Trump supporter, whose going to turn over everything.

Jesus Saves. Jesus Trump, of the
Now you have an identity
movement. “See? Now you’re with me
And I won’t even remember your name”
3, 5 years later, they’ll realize what a joke it was.
“you have done a good job, voting for me”
The evil mezmerist

Actual Mesmerists will deal with this man

But his supporters will love him for giving them that brief time
when they had an identity, and were connected to the world

see ya in sheep steaks voter, Trump will yell to them
once vested of the powers of President
until Batman and Robin and oh the movie projects
he’ll spur the country with

It’s like beating back the devil out there
the Trump supporters careening through their lvs
confused and lost,.

As If drumpf will bring back manufacting glory to Michigan

As If

coal pollution and coalmining will make america great again

as if

undermining the trust of every allie
will ‘help’ the overseas efforts

like some moronic omen figure
a trite tabloid grotesque as the french would say

a man with the deadweight visage of a corpse thrown off a bridge
30 years ago, to be polite

definitely a supernatural evil

have no doubt

for shame Donald Trump’s life

exhaust that supernatural tension

LEAVE THIS BODY, DEMON

You’re Gone, Don\ald Tr’ump ticket

It’d be a funny ending ending if he won

a rank idiot in charge

at least a Hillary win would be like clean hotels without bedbugs
a federal government that keeps things from going completely to hell

John R Barlow, Oversion Magazine
it isn’t true

I’m thinking a profanity laden rant on my
oversion weblog where swearing is allowed
built right into the settings, ‘Swearing?” Just fine.

swearing is allowed in oversion .

melt trump down c

and now you get the splendours of autumn

and answers to questions like
why is the moon so reflective
which I myself don’t know
whats with shining rock

Autumn Re-Enriches

Rainy days but if you ignore it the quality of light you can find is exemplary often bordering on unique.

Matthews Marners and Zaitsevs 1st Games as Leafs

I will also absolutely seek to not bore you with hockey 

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Admit One: Hockey Poetry World

How quickly one takes for granted the 4 goals!

The Anti-Climactic can find its way in by any ingenius means.

A new season, a new world.

First off, Shoeless Joes (the former ferret&firkin/sticky wicket)

its ever changing decor featuring now a handsome

Bailiff’s letter in the window. It’s gone.

And 84 year old poet David Antin’s demise

suddenly overshadowing the start of the game.

I saw him read and admired him, but we didn’t converse.

He made a great impression on others though,

and I could see from his reading he was a great guy,

and intelligent, and of a novel mindset.

That shaking out and the fact that on the little bike ride over

Auston Matthews had scored the 1-0 goal. Huzzah.

 Ottawa got that one back. Bobby Ryan on the new

flashy top line 2, Dzingel I think, with Brassard and

rejuvenated Ryan. Finally seems like the player he’d seemed like.

Then it’s Auston Matthews with a stunning goal.

Stole on the puck 3 times in the course of stickhandling

through a maze of defenders.

 Ottawa got that one back. Karlsson from Brassard and Ryan.

Then Auston Matthews scored again, nice play from Rielly.

And that lead held up for more than 16 minutes.

Things were looking good all that time.

  Ottawa got that one back. Brassard. 3-3.

3 seconds to go 2nd period, great play, Auston Matthews!

And a nice long intermission ahead 4-3.

3rd period a sturdy defensive effort,

but a signalled automatic icing was waved off

and a split second later the puck’s in the net. Kyle Turris.

Anticipating a dazzling prolonged 3 on 3

Kyle Turris, again set up by Stone.

Would have been nice to win!

Matthews will have to be better next game,

and thats against Boston.

Basically Ryan Brassard’s line and Matthews Hyman Nylander line

dominated most if not all of their shifts

then suddenly Turris and Stone

gun us down.

Weird scene in the alternative bar, The Beer Station,

a long sketchy environment with cool new ownership

and now featuring a Bulgogi burger!

Definitely rocks. But not in a way

I recommend. Returned to a deplorable scene

on the front porch and blocking entry to alongside the building.

But Jesus, contemporary humanity, new forms thereof.

There’s more than just hipsters out there.

Almost an eery vibeto this remarkable beginning

to the careers of these superstars.

Varone has made the team in Ottawa.

The top two lines eating a lot of the ice time

but he’ll gradually hash out a career.

Matthews and Nylander come in with plus 3’s and multipoint games

to put it mildly in Matthews case

but the linemate, mr babcock favorite the hardworking Zach Hyman

just 1 assist, but a plus 4.

And your Mitch Marner fact?

by deep in the second period the leafs had had 20 attempts on the net

and 10 of them had been set up by Marner or were him

I predict he has a 15 point game some day

if he keeps skating like that.

A minus 2 on the night

Zaitsev a good game

and Connor Brown with many forays on the net

but yo the feeling of talking too much, revealing too much

in bars like that and bits of street like that.

The bar’s a block away – Always – all too local

fleeting culture shock

some whole new form of scroller humanity

all mini space ships of knowing everything, sort of,

and, growing poorer and poorer and poorer

and forms of drugs like no other era

not just the nihilist recreationals

people trust pot because it is what it is, a plant

not a postmodern science bad idea that is briefly profitable and

destructive

Also the sidewalk life of my neighbourhood

Stone aged stroller actually walking in trances

through the fluttering branches of shoulder to shoulder

Beckettian background cast, at about a quarter to Dickens